


Ways To Say I Love You

by theacesofspades



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, ish, sleepy henry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 14:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11738997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theacesofspades/pseuds/theacesofspades
Summary: Sometimes it's a kiss. Sometimes it's a loving touch. Sometimes it's 'I know'.





	Ways To Say I Love You

Some nights when Henry wakes up, he’s got a boyfriend on one side and a girlfriend on the other. On those nights, he’ll press gentle, careful kisses to Gansey’s shoulder, to Blue’s forehead, fidget until he’s comfortable, and then drift back off into sleep. Sometimes, like tonight, someone will have wandered off and he’ll have to go looking and drag them back to sleep.

Sometimes it’s Blue missing. When it’s Blue, Henry knows all he needs to do is warm up a cup of something comforting, like tea or coffee - but preferably hot chocolate - hunt Blue down - either curled up on the couch or working late in their study - wrap her up and listen to her talk. Sometimes she needs him to talk back, sometimes not. Sometimes she’s just up late and wants to bounce ideas of him - ideas for clothes, for jobs, for schools; ideas about trees, about magic, about what she _is_ ; and just ideas that pop into her head about any old thing.

Sometimes it’s Gansey who’s missing from the comfort of their small (re: cozy) bed. Tonight, it’s Gansey.

It must be overcast. Most nights he can see their room from the moon alone - which he knows for a fact is full tonight - but tonight he can’t see a thing. But despite the subpar optical conditions, he knows even before he pats down Gansey’s side of the bed that he’s not there. He can feel Blue behind him, a reassuring, warm mass pressed into his back, but the other side of the bed is empty and devoid of any and all Dicks.

Henry sits up and stretches, feels the blissful pop of his back, and slides out of bed. Blue is still fast asleep, curled up on her side in a little warm ball, cocooned in her blankets. Blue steals blankets so often that most nights she just goes to bed with her own to give Gansey and Henry the chance to have blankets through the night.

It’s dark, and Henry is still half asleep and only half aware of his actions - he scoops up a shirt from the floor and pulls it on, bleary-eyed. He knocks into the doorway on his way out of the bedroom and bounces off the wall of the hallway several times before making it to the kitchen at the end. As he stumbles through the dark, his mind drifts to where Gansey might be.

If Gansey is up late working on a project, Henry can probably convince him to come to bed. It’ll take some finagling, but he’s usually able to get Gansey to realize that whatever he’s working on will turn out better in the end if he’s fully awake while he’s working on it. If it’s the scale-model replica of Henrietta he’s putting together, it’ll be tougher to get him to drop it, but it’ll be doable. Henry can be very persuasive when he needs to be. (That’s a lie, he usually ends up helping Gansey until they both pass out on the floor.)

But he was pretty sure Gansey was with them when they went to bed, so it’s probably something else and that can be harder to deal with, especially when Henry’s still mostly asleep and his brain isn’t ready to make connections between his thoughts and his mouth.

After ensuring the study is empty of any Ganseys, Henry drifts from room to room, barely glancing in any of them. He knows where Gansey is most likely to be when he’s not up late with an insomnia project.

He pauses in the kitchen. This is not where Gansey is most likely to be when he’s not up late with an insomnia project, but it is where warm drinks that wake you up are most likely to be, and Henry figures he can spare a few minutes to make himself some coffee. He shuffles around the room in the dark, trying to be as quiet as he can. There’s no need to wake Blue and deprive all of them of their sleep; they’re better in the mornings if at least one of them got a good night’s rest and isn’t ready to snap everyone’s head off.

(Not that Henry or Gansey are particularly prone to anger when sleep-deprived, that is by far and away more of a Blue thing, but it has been known to happen in extreme cases, and is always known to make Ronan laugh like there’s no tomorrow.)

Henry grabs a few rags out from a drawer and sticks them under the coffee maker. Their coffee machine was an unnaturally loud creature and only grew louder the more they needed it to be quiet, but giving it a nice rag pillow to sit on seemed to placate it. Sometimes. Henry could only plug it in and hope for the best.

While the machine heats up and starts to rumble, Henry considers where Gansey might be. It was possible he was sleeping in one of the rooms Henry had passed by on his way to the kitchen, but more than likely he was on the porch. He liked to sit there in the dark when he was having trouble sleeping, just look up at the stars and let his mind wander all over the place. Henry didn’t really get the appeal - in the dark the sky seemed supernaturally wide, a big, deep chasm that he could fall into if he wasn’t careful. It made him feel very small.

Which, as he understood it, was also how it made Gansey feel. But sometimes Gansey took solace in that feeling, so to each their own coping mechanisms, he guessed. It was probably healthier than Lynch trying to outrun himself on a highway, and definitely safer.

Henry flinches when the coffee machine finally wakes up and starts humming (an unrealistically nice word for it, Henry thought), a loud drone that shakes from the machine down into the counters, muffled only slightly by the towels he’d placed underneath it. Still, better than nothing, and Blue didn’t seem to be stirring from the bedroom, so he’s probably in the clear.

He waits for the last of the coffee to drain itself into his cup, then packs it generously with sugar and coffee cream. He grabs a spoon from another drawer that he pushes shut with his hip, and heads to the front door, stirring the coffee as he goes.

The first thing he notices when he opens the door is the rain - it’s only slightly heavier than a small drizzle, but it’s still oppressively humid, despite the slight chill in the air. He almost turns right back around and abandons any hope of finding Gansey - the sticky air is abhorrent and one of his (few) weaknesses. But there, sitting on the second to last step, just barely out of the rain, sits Gansey. He’s leaning up against one of the stair railings, eyes closed.

Henry walks down and sits down on his left, one step above him. He drinks some of his coffee. Gansey doesn’t open his eyes, but he does shift, moving over to Henry and laying his head on his knee instead of the railing. Henry passes the coffee cup into his left hand and runs his right through Gansey’s hair, grounding him. Neither of them say anything. Henry can’t order the words right in his head to even begin trying, and he knows Gansey is busying arranging his own thoughts, working his way back to now, so they sit in a comfortable silence, Gansey still, and Henry brushing his hair with his hand and occasionally taking sips of his coffee.

If not always being able to find the words to express himself had taught him anything over the years, it was that sometimes the best thing was to say nothing. So Henry sits with Gansey in silence.

It’s what both of them need.

For a long time they just sit. Henry knows when Gansey’s pulled out of his thoughts when he wordlessly shifts up on the steps, sitting level with Henry. The only thing that breaks the silence are the singing bugs and Gansey’s occasional sniffs. He tries to keep them quiet, but Henry knows he’s crying. His hands always shake when he cries, and even though he’s got them balled into fists, they’re still trembling.

Henry warms his hands on his coffee cup. He stares up at the stars, bright and multitudinous, sharing the sky with the moon, round and full tonight and finally come out from behind a cloud. Gansey’s wearing his glasses, and the light from the porch bounces off of them.

“I miss Noah.” Gansey bites his lip. Henry had noticed it wobbling, too, but he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he shifts over closer to Gansey and wraps his arm around his shoulders. Gansey lays his head on Henry’s shoulder and quietly shakes.

“I wish I could’ve really met him,” Henry said. He turns his head and kisses Gansey’s forehead. “He seems like he was really swell.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

Gansey snorts. “He was.”

Gansey takes a deep breath, but he doesn’t continue. Henry rubs his shoulder with his free hand, occasionally taking sips of his coffee. He hums quietly to himself.

Henry liked the quiet, but something in the air had shifted now that Gansey had spoken. Silence was no longer what Gansey needed right now, he could tell. He remembered something Blue had told him once - sometimes what helped Gansey most was just noise. Just talking about nothing. She’d told him that they’d spent many nights on the phone with one another talking about nothing. Never bringing up what was actually bothering them, but content to know that someone else was there for them, was willing to talk, and knew that they were upset even if they couldn’t say what about.

Henry wasn’t great at talking, but he could do this. He knows this will effectively change the subject and pull them away from Noah. He feels bad, but he also feels wholly unprepared for that conversation, especially at whatever twilight witching zone hour they’re unfortunately awake for. So he presses a soft kiss to Gansey’s temple and starts talking about nothing.

Blue’s adorable sleepy face when he’d left the room. How obnoxiously loud their coffee machine was (we really should get a new one, Dicky, I know Blue’s kind of attached to it, but it really is very loud). The kind of dog they were thinking of getting Blue for her birthday. The oppressive heat of the summer (it’s unnecessary, G-man, it’s like we’re being punished unduly for some crime of existence). How much Adam laughed nowadays; how easily he smiled. The current length of Ronan’s hair (growing it out is really just an invitation for that crazy bird of his to move off his shoulder and into his head, but, hey, if it makes him happy).

He talks until he runs out of coffee to slowly sip at. Then he keeps talking.

He finally trails off when he notices Gansey staring at him. His eyes are a little wide and his mouth had fallen down without him noticing. Henry beams. Managing to surprise his boyfriend was always a delight. “What’s wrong?”

A slow, almost disbelieving smile spreads across Gansey’s face. He laughs quietly. “Blue used to do this for me. Back before we were really technically even dating. How’d. . . .” He fades off and bites his lip. “How’d you know I needed that?”

Henry’s grin goes up a few watts. He bounces forward and kisses Gansey’s forehead. “I know you.”

Even in the dim light provided by the porch light, Henry can see Gansey’s face light up, the way his cheeks change color as he blushes, the light in his eyes. Henry wasn’t entirely sure what was so special to Gansey about Henry and Blue knowing things about him, but if Henry’s encyclopedic knowledge of his boyfriend was what made him happy, he was more than eager to spout facts at him.

Henry turns and carefully places his coffee cup on the porch behind them, then softly takes Gansey’s chin and lifts his face up to his. Gansey’s lips are chapped. He can feel him still smiling.

Gansey lazily rests a hand on Henry’s chest and pulls away, leans forward and pecks him quickly on the lips, then pulls away again, loosely curling his fingers in Henry’s sleep shirt (which he can see now is Blue’s old Rainbow album t-shirt). “Henry, I -”

“I know.” He rubs Gansey’s lip with his thumb, the way he’d seen Gansey do a million and one times. The porch light makes Gansey fuzzy, a little soft around the edges. Henry’s heart aches. He doesn’t know how to tell Gansey that.

Henry kisses him again. Gansey bites his lip. Henry grins.

They don’t make it back to bed until significantly later, so Henry’s rescue mission was kind of botched, but they’re both pink-cheeked, chap-lipped, and happy, so. All’s well that ends well.

**Author's Note:**

> I love writing bc I finally went back to this in my drafts and my most detailed notes were nothing but:  
> Henry: I know you  
> Gansey: oh shit I'm gay  
> and I just think that's beautiful.
> 
> Also, sorry for any inconsistencies, I still haven't reread The Raven King yet, where all the good Henry content is.


End file.
